Created by the World Heart Foundation, World Heart Day is a global campaign educating people on how to take charge of their heart health to help reduce Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) including heart disease and stroke.

Nurse Manager, Araceli Flores from Macklin Care Home’s Ratheane, added: “One of the core values of the Macklin Care Home Group is ‘We Care with Heart’ – and at Ratheane Care Home we ensure that the residents and their families are at the heart of everything we do, which is why we felt it important to celebrate World Heart Day.

“We like to encourage healthy hearts by ensuring residents eat well and, where possible, take regular light exercise through our daily activities. This initiative from the World Heart Foundation was a great fit for us, as we can have turned the tables to ask our residents’ views on what they believe is their secret to a healthy, happy heart.”

With 82 residents, including three residents over 100, there was plenty of ‘hearty’ tips.

Gwen Parkhill, a 100-year-old resident at Ratheane Care Home, said: “My top tip to a healthy happy heart is too worry less – less stress and try to live each day as it comes.”

101-year-old resident, Nan McLaughlin, commented: “I live by the good old saying, everything in moderation – my advice is to keep things plain, have nothing too fancy.”

Fellow resident Tom McQuillan, aged 84, who has five children, three grand-children and one great grand-child added: “I love listening to music and dancing keeps me happy and my heart healthy. We have live music at the home every Saturday so I love singing along and getting up for a dance.”

The World Heart Federation is dedicated to leading the global fight against cardiovascular disease (CVD), including heart disease and stroke.

For more information, please visit: www.worldheart.org www.facebook.com/worldheartfederation and twitter.com/worldheartfed